In much of current construction of buildings for industrial and commercial purposes, so-called "dry wall" construction is widely used for interior non-loadbearing partitions. Current practice is to erect such walls by attaching gypsum board to a framework of sheet metal studs and other framing members to both sides of which gypsum board is attached by means of sheet-metal screws. The spacing of the metal studs in such framework is governed by the dimension of the covering wall panels which are conventionally 4 feet wide, and require the placement of metal studs on not more than 24 inches centers for minimum support of the gypsum board panel midway between the vertical joints between adjacent boards. Local code requirements may reduce stud spacing to 16 inches, i.e., requiring three studs per 4-foot panel instead of two.
The attachment of the gypsum board to the sheetmetal framing is done with power driven self-drilling, self-tapping screws, and the finishing of the vertical joints is done by decorators who tape and fill the joints with spackling plaster and repair any dimples in the gypsum board occasioned by the driving of the attaching screws.
The process requires a substantial amount of manual labor in the erection of the wall framing, in the attachment of the gypsum board panels, and in the necessary touchup required of the decorators in the patching of the joint and any tool marks made in the panel during the erection process.
Moreover, such partition walls, while satisfactory for their purpose, suffer from being relatively immovable due to the permanence of the attachment of the gypsum board to the metal framing, which renders the gypsum board panels largely unsalvagable in the event that later movement of the wall is required.
The construction member and erection technique of this invention greatly simplify the erection of interior partition walls of the dry wall type, render such walls movable and reusable in new locations, and materially reduce the erection time and the labor required, thus reducing the cost of such walls, as well as adapting them for reuse as space requirements may vary.
The construction member of the invention modified dimensionally from that contemplated for interior partition walls, is adaptable as well for use as a ceiling member. Also, by the judicious selection of component materials, it is adaptable as well for constructing exterior walls not only of the non-loadbearing type employed to sheath building structures of the structural skeleton type, but also for exterior walls of a loadbearing kind which carry relatively light loads, as, for example, in residental construction.
A basic characteristic of the construction member, whether the component materials are such as to adapt it for interior or exterior use, is that when used as a wall member, it provides its own studs, and when used as a ceiling member, provides its own joists.